Qianyi Zhang is a DPhil History student at the University of Oxford. He holds a bachelor’s degree in History from the University of Oxford and a master’s degree in International and Asian History from the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research focuses on the First World War, in particular the Chinese Labour Corps, the British Empire in China during the war, and wartime diplomacy and government administration.
DPhil topic
'The Chinese Labour Corps: Empire, Ideologies, and Persistent Racial Hierarchies'
A study of how the Chinese Labour Corps reflected and actively promoted British imperial administrative structures, ideologies and interests, and how the Chinese intellectual community, deeply entrenched in Social Darwinist ideals of modernisation, was unable to formulate a critical response to British abuses.
